Monday 9 July 2012 06.18 EDT
First published on Monday 9 July 2012 06.18 EDT

As the Farnborough Air Show gets underway, BAE Systems is powering ahead in a downbeat market.

The aerospace and defence group is up 3.7p at 296.6p, the biggest riser in a falling FTSE 100. Partly this is due to hopes of news from Farnborough - although on Friday the company said it would not be divulging any market sensitive information at its analyst and investor meetings at the show. And partly it follows reports the company is the frontrunner to win a £7bn contract to supply new Hawk training jets to the US air force.

Meanwhile ahead of the show, analyst Sandy Morris at Jefferies issued a buy note on the business:

We see good value in the defence sector. Of course, we must yet scramble over the hurdle of the US Sequester [a possible $500bn funding cut for the Department of Defense] – although we estimate its impact on BAE as likely to be modest and certainly no threat to a maintained dividend. The other possible hurdle is that of a buy-back, we continue to believe it would be injudicious for one to start in 2012 and we are aware that may still disappoint some observers.

But worries about slowing growth in China - it announced an unexpected drop in inflation earlier and analysts are now concerned about Friday's GDP figure - have hit mining shares. There is also some nervousness about Alcoa's forthcoming results, which kick off the latest US reporting season.

So Xstrata is down 20.2p at 813.8p while Anglo American has fallen 30.5p to 2073.5p.